


Holiday Style

by Sholio



Category: Iron Fist (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Presents, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Holidays, Team Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 23:20:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17110070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Danny's first Christmas back in New York.





	Holiday Style

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place between seasons 1 & 2, after Defenders.
> 
> I feel like I should point out that I have a _lot_ of headcanons about holidays and Christmas for these characters; this is just one possible version, not my personal ~definitive version~ (and I have so many ideas that I will probably write other versions of this Christmas if I'm still in the fandom in a year, which right now seems very likely!). I also really want to read other people's versions, because I am all about AALLLL the holiday fic at this time of year. XD Basically, it's such a tiny fandom that I'm a little worried about locking people into one set of headcanons by writing what appears to be one of very few holiday fic out there for it, set in a very specific point in canon (and a slightly unusual take on it, at that). So I just wanted to say that I would love to read other versions of this and I hope people write them!

It wasn't that Danny had _forgotten_ about Christmas, exactly. It was just that after fifteen years in K'un Lun, with a completely different set of holidays, he didn't really think about it until the slow encroachment of music and displays in the stores and decorations along the streets began gradually to filter into his awareness and suddenly he realized, oh, _Christmas!_

 _It was a big deal for me once,_ he thought, walking back to the Chikara dojo (now slowly being converted into living space) after a chilly night of vigilante-ing on the rooftops and side streets. He still remembered being that person, the kid who lay awake late at night, jittery with excitement for tomorrow, and dashed downstairs in the morning to shake out his stocking beside the fireplace in the Hamptons mansion where they usually retreated for the holidays.

He remembered that. He just didn't know how to feel that again, or if he even wanted to. The holidays he got excited about now were ones that, for the most part, people here hadn't even heard of.

It still seemed like a shame not to try to get back in touch with that part of his heritage, though. 

"I was thinking about getting some decorations for Christmas," he told Colleen over cups of tea after a morning round of katas for stretching and fun. The interior of the dojo was currently a mess, filled with sawhorses and draped in plastic.

"Oh, right, Christmas! Sorry, I didn't really think about it. Your family celebrated it, I'm guessing?" she asked, and he nodded. "I guess I never thought to ask."

"There's a lot we don't know about each other yet." He leaned on the new kitchen island they'd just had installed, which Colleen was sitting on, swinging her legs. They didn't have any stools that fit it yet.

"True. It's never been one of my holidays, to be fair. I mean, I've been in the U.S. long enough to have gotten used to it; it's not like I have a problem with it aside from the fact that it's everywhere for two months out of the year. But I didn't grow up with it, so I've never really felt a need to do anything for it."

"Do you mind if we decorate the dojo?" Danny asked anxiously. "It's your home too. Actually, it was your home first. We won't do anything if you don't want to."

"No, I'm fine with it." She glanced around at the construction mess with a smile. "If you can find anything to decorate that's not covered in plastic sheeting or sawdust."

"I'll improvise. We're good at that."

"Team Wing-Rand." She leaned toward him; he came to her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. "Just don't expect any last-minute conversions into the Christmas spirit or anything of that nature."

"No conversions, no evangelizing," Danny promised, nibbling at her lips.

 

***

 

Thinking of Christmas led to thoughts of Christmas gifts. Colleen said she'd rather not exchange gifts, which was fine by Danny, but this line of reasoning led him uptown to ...

"Luke!"

"Sweet Christmas!"

"Yes, that's why I'm here."

"Don't sneak up on a guy." Luke blew out a breath. "I could've punched you into next week."

"You could've tried," Danny said, grinning and bouncing on his toes. "Do you want to try?"

"Not right now." Luke slapped his palm into the one Danny held out, hooked their fingers together. "What's up, man? What brings you up this way?"

"Saying hi to a friend, and ... asking about something I haven't done in fifteen years, I guess. Got a minute?"

A few minutes later, they were tucked away in a diner, with cups of coffee in front of them (Danny had dumped in as many creamers as would fit, took a sip, and left it alone).

"So I'm conflicted about Christmas," Danny said, curling his hands around the cup of coffee. It might taste like hot iron filings, but it was warm, and the wind was cold outside.

Luke snorted. "Between the commercialism and Bill O'Reilly, who isn't these days?"

"I have no idea who Bill O'Reilly is."

"Lucky you. Keep it that way." Their food arrived -- a double-decker burger for Luke, a club sandwich for Danny -- and Luke dug in like he hadn't eaten in a week. "So," he said around a bite, "what's the conflict?"

"I think it's mostly that after fifteen years ago, I don't really know how to ... deal." Danny waved a hand around the diner, where a plastic wreath and some lights in the windows made a half-hearted concession to the holiday. "Like, Christmas is a big thing here, I know that. I remember when it was a big thing for me too. But now I'm looking at it and ... I don't know, man."

He hesitated and poked at his fries. 

"What's that mean?" Luke asked. "C'mon, man. Get it out."

Danny shrugged. "You're supposed to give people presents, right? I remember how awesome that used to be when I was a kid. But now I'm looking at it and thinking, who needs more cheap overpriced crap anyway? I was looking at decorations in the stores and it's the same problem, cheap plastic stuff probably made by workers in sweatshop conditions, that you only bring out once a year. And I was going to ask what you wanted for Christmas because I don't even know how to give people Christmas presents anymore, but then I got to thinking, I'm not sure if I really feel right about it, either giving people things _or_ getting them, if it's just obligation and stuff you don't need. Anyway, most people I'm around these days, it's not even one of their holidays, and that's making me think about how there are actually a lot of other people in this country, too, who it's not a holiday for, and wondering if I really ought to ... I dunno."

He wound down and took a bite of his sandwich to shut himself up.

"Dude," Luke said after a minute. "You worry too much."

"It's weird," Danny said, around a mouthful of club sandwich. "This is my culture, right? At least it ought to be. It used to be. But it doesn't feel like it."

This time Luke laughed out loud. "You think you're the first person who grew up and changed his mind about stuff like that? Come _on,_ man. Get over yourself."

Danny reluctantly smiled back. "Okay, yeah, if you put it _that_ way. But, look, most people do that over a lifetime. I'm having to do it overnight. Cut me some slack."

"You gotta get that it's not just you, though. You grow up. You see some stuff. The simple black and white world you used to live in isn't the real world. So you figure out what to keep and what to throw away. Everybody does that. _Everybody."_

Luke's voice had gone contemplative. Danny leaned his chin in his hand. "What'd you keep and throw away?"

There was a pause and Luke waved the waitress over for a refill on his coffee before he answered. "Okay, look, here's the thing about Christmas for me. It's important to me. My dad was a pastor, don't know if I ever told you that. So I grew up with faith as a big part of my life. It's an important religious holiday for me. And we did the whole tree thing, presents, the decorations, the whole nine yards. Really got into it."

"And you don't still?"

"Not really. I don't know. I think as I got older, the faith part mattered more to me than it ever did when I was a kid, at the same time I was having doubts about that because of, you know. Shit happens, punches a hole in your world, that's life."

"I'm sorry, man," Danny said, and he meant it. "I know some of what you've been through, and I know it doesn't compare to what I've been through --"

"It's not about whose shit was worse. It's just a human universal, man. You grow up, you go through stuff, you figure shit out. Nobody can do that for you."

"I'm not sure if that's very helpful advice," Danny said, picking at his sandwich.

"That's because I can't make those decisions for you. Look, really, Danny, you're a nice kid, your instincts are good, so just, I dunno, man. Go with what feels right to you. Does that help?"

"Sort of? I guess."

Luke grinned at him and nudged him under the table with his foot. "So before you showed up, I was about to head out to deal with a new drug operation that just set up shop a few blocks west of here. Soon as we finish here, you want to come? Punching a few people might make you feel better."

"You _do_ know what I like."

 

***

 

"I have no idea what to get you for Christmas," Ward said out of the blue.

They were having lunch at a small café around the corner from the Rand building. Ever since that day on the roof with Harold, they'd been in a slow, awkward dance around getting to know each other again. At first it had been texts and emails and an occasional phone call while Danny was on the hunt for the Hand. Now that he was back, these informal lunches and occasionally grabbing coffee in the morning had turned into a thing, too.

Company business was their ostensible purpose for seeing each other -- had been the reason, in fact, for most of their communication in those early months. But at some point, Danny wasn't quite sure when it had happened, work had become the excuse, not the real reason. He wasn't sure when things had stopped being awkward with Ward. Maybe it was just that there were so few other people they could talk to about the things that had happened to them, so many things they shared that no one else still living knew about.

"You don't have to give me anything," Danny said.

"Oh, knock it off, I'm a dick but I'm not that much of a dick." Ward leaned back in his chair and narrowed his eyes but didn't say anything when Danny stole one of the sweet potato fries off the edge of his plate. "Come on, seriously, what do you get for the barefoot billionaire who has everything?"

Danny shrugged. "There isn't anything I want. I don't like gift-giving just for the sake of giving gifts. It's wasteful."

"I am not going to _not_ give you a goddamn Christmas present for the first time in fifteen years."

"I don't remember you giving me Christmas presents even back when we were kids."

"Okay, thanks for rubbing it in, so first time ever then. Call it a coming back from the dead present. If I could just figure out what. You're not being helpful. I used to give Joy perfume, but somehow I don't think that'll work on you."

"You gave her perfume every year?"

"Yeah, Velvet Orchid, it was her scent." There was a brief silence, a temporary awkwardness at the mention of Joy, before Ward took a breath and bulled through it. "Look, I'm not good with people; I think we all know that about me. And giving presents definitely falls under the category of 'people.' My assistant keeps a list of everyone in the upper-level offices who needs to get a fruit basket or whatever it that she gives them with my name attached. The financial office does the holiday bonuses. I'm not involved on any level."

"What does your assistant get?" Danny asked.

"A nice fat bonus for putting up with me all year round." His smile was bleak. "And a floral arrangement the florist has standing orders to send."

Danny looked at him thoughtfully and reached for another of Ward's uneaten fries. Ward halfheartedly swatted at his hand. "So Joy's the only person you ever gave a personal gift to. In your entire life."

"Thanks for rubbing it in. Again."

"No, I was just thinking, maybe you _should_ give me a gift. And pick it out yourself." Danny grinned. "I'm super easy because I haven't had a Christmas present since I was ten, so I'll like whatever you give me. It's like training wheels for present giving."

"You are an idiot."

"I expect it to be wrapped in festive paper," Danny said, crossing his ankles under the table and tugging Ward's plate a little closer so he could get to the leftover fries more easily. He'd found himself unimpressed with normal, salty, over-greasy french fries (they weren't nearly as good as he remembered from when he was ten) but these were pretty good. Ward was good at picking restaurants. "Wrapped by you, by the way. Not at the store."

Ward looked like he was desperately trying not to either laugh or scream. "I don't believe this."

"You're the one who wanted to give me a Christmas present."

"Yeah, but I wasn't expecting it to turn into some kind of life lesson or something. Although I don't know _why_ I wasn't expecting it. This is you, after all."

"So what do _you_ want?" Danny held out one of the remaining french fries like a peace offering. Ward rolled his eyes and took it.

"Oh, hell no. If I'm having to do this blind, so are you."

 

***

 

"I need to figure out something to give Ward for Christmas."

"I thought you decided you weren't doing presents," Colleen said, looking up from her careful application of touch-up paint around a window in the dojo. "Because of the commercialism and so on and so forth."

"Yeah, well, Ward insists on giving me one, so I can't _not_ give him one. Anyway, I'm getting something for Luke, I think. And probably Jessica, because I bet she doesn't get very many presents. And maybe Misty, she did help save my life after all."

"You gave her an arm worth millions of dollars; that should count for something." She brushed hair out of her face with the back of her hand, trying not to get paint on her face, and turned around. Danny was sitting in the lotus position on the floor, painstakingly threading cranberries onto a string with a needle. A bowl of popcorn sat next to him with a half-completed popcorn chain looping out of the bowl like a thin, lumpy snake. "I'm impressed you have the patience for that."

"At least I'm not having to do it while sitting on a plank in the rain, having someone hit me across the shoulders with a leather strap every time I drop one," Danny murmured absently, as he carefully picked up another cranberry with the needle.

"They had you stringing cranberry chains?"

"Weaving grass mats, mostly. Oh, and there was the one time when Davos and I had to clean up the training room floor by picking up every grain of sand by hand for talking during our katas. Every time we got close to done, one of the monks would walk through again. We worked through supper and probably until three or four in the morning, then got up for training an hour later ..."

"Sounds like fun," she said, carefully, when he had trailed off and didn't look likely to resume.

"It taught me patience," Danny murmured, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated. "So. Ward. Gifts."

"I don't even know Ward, why would I know what he wants for Christmas? Just ask him."

"I did. He wouldn't say."

"The man can afford to buy and sell private islands. I don't think he needs anything."

"It's not about things you need." Danny stretched out his shoulders and draped a loop of the cranberry chain over his pink-stained fingers. "It's about letting people know you're thinking of them."

"Oh no you don't."

"What?" Danny asked, looking up.

"Don't spirit-of-Christmas me, I'm serious."

"I'm not trying to," he said sincerely. "It's more that I'm figuring it out on my own. What I want my childhood holidays to mean to me now. And I think this is it for me. It's not about the religious aspects for me, and I don't have the same set of cultural connotations that most people do, not anymore. But a lot of people in this culture _do_ celebrate it, and I think it helped me to think of it not so much as obligation but ... well, it's sort of like giving happiness to others during Vesak. You know Vesak, right?"

"Sort of. Buddha's birthday, isn't it?"

"Right. It's not that you _have_ to. It's that it's good for you, and good for them, and the holiday is a reason to do it. So I'm going to try to approach it in that mindset and see how it goes."

"Good luck," she said, and smiled. "Still can't help you with your Ward problem, though."

"I know. I'm mostly just thinking out loud. I do have Jessica figured out now."

 

***

 

"Oh, God, what, no," Jessica groaned when Danny Rand turned up on the doorstep of her office with a brightly wrapped parcel in hand. "This is for Christmas. Is this for Christmas? I don't do Christmas."

"I'm sorry. I didn't think to ask. Is it a religious issue?"

"No, it's a stupid holiday for stupid people that fills up the entire world with _stupid music!"_ This last was shouted at the window. Tinny strains of Christmas music could be heard filtering in from somewhere on another floor. "I would like to kill the person who wrote Jingle Bell Rock," Jessica added, flopping in the chair behind her desk. "I'll bury them next to the person who wrote Twelve Days of Christmas. I'll shove a partridge up _your_ fucking pear tree, buddy."

Danny set the colorful parcel down on the edge of her desk. "You can throw it out if you like. I won't be offended."

Jessica glared at him and folded her fingers over the top of a half-empty bottle of whiskey. "You damn well better not expect something _back._ If there's one thing I hate about Christmas even more than the music, it's the obligations. Do I owe a present to great-aunt Karen this year because she gave me that shitty fruit basket last year? That kind of thing."

"I didn't know you had a great-aunt Karen."

"I don't. I'm making a point. It's a holiday that's made out of guilt tripping and the only way to win the game is not to play."

Her diatribe rolled off him; he merely grinned. "Well, you can throw it away, then; that's okay. I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you." He pulled something out of his pocket; she saw dark red coils drooping from his fingers and for one horrified moment thought he was giving her some kind of entrails (she really needed to start hanging around with a better class of people) before the cranberry chain landed on her desk. "Here, in case you want to decorate. I made some extra ones. Merry Christmas, Jessica."

And with that, he was out of her office, and, hopefully, out of her life.

"Merry friggin' Christmas," Jessica murmured. She took a swig from the bottle and then reached out to pick up a loop of the chain. It looked homemade. It probably was. She could easily picture Danny "idle billionaire" Rand sitting around stringing cranberries; it seemed like _exactly_ the sort of thing he'd do.

She picked up the gift, eyeballed it and held it over the trash can. It was about the size of a large hardback book, and curiously soft yet kind of heavy. 

She hadn't gone into the private eye business because she liked letting a mystery go unexplored. With a deep sigh, she tore the paper off.

Underneath the paper was something soft, knitted, and kitten-gray. Jessica tried to pull it out and discovered it was wrapped around something. After some cursing and pulling, she got the soft gray thing unwound -- it turned out to be a scarf, probably cashmere based on the way it felt, probably stupidly expensive based on the person who had given it to her. It was wrapped around a bright-colored tin box with Chinese characters on it and a "repurposed from a garage sale" sort of look, which turned out to contain a bunch of little cookies when she opened it up.

"You _suck,_ Danny Rand."

She set the open box of cookies on the edge of her desk (next to the card from Malcolm, which was facedown so she didn't have to look at it), and cautiously sampled one. It was pretty good, not that she wanted to admit it.

She stared into nowhere, took another drink, and unlooped her other scarf and tried draping the new one around her neck. It was incredibly soft and a lot nicer than her regular one. 

"Fuck," she muttered, yanking it off, and stuffed it into a drawer of her desk to be dealt with later.

She had another cookie.

After awhile, she got up and draped the cranberry chain haphazardly around her desk. There. Decorating accomplished. If anyone said anything about it, she was going to push them out the window.

 

***

 

"Hey there! I'm going to guess you got your Christmas issues worked out," Luke said cheerfully with a nod towards Danny's plastic reindeer antlers.

Danny reached up and poked at them. "Oh yeah, those! I was wearing them at the center, helping out Colleen earlier today, and I kept wearing them on the subway because they were making people smile." He rummaged in the beat-up duffel slung over his shoulder and held out a package. "Anyway. Got you something."

"You really didn't have to." Luke squeezed it; the package yielded, like clothing. "You want me to open it?"

"Sure," Danny said, beaming. "It's not really a big thing. Just, you know. A 'thinking about you' kind of thing."

Luke shook out a gray hoodie with the Bayard community center logo on it. "Hell, man. This'll come in handy."

"I thought so. You go through so many of those it couldn't hurt to have another one, right?"

Luke grinned and slapped him on the shoulder, then gave up and pulled him in for a quick hug. "You're doing all right, you know. Got you something too. Hang on, let me get it."

Danny looked both surprised and delighted when Luke tossed him a wrapped package, catching it easily out of the air. "I can open this too, right?"

"Yeah, sure, go ahead."

Danny grinned and tore the paper off. "Oh, hey! Is this a fruitcake? This _is_ a fruitcake! You know, I don't think I was entirely sure those were a real thing."

"That is not just any fruitcake, man. You've never had a fruitcake like this one. That's Great-Aunt Edna's blue-ribbon recipe. You think fruitcake's a joke for holiday specials, this is the fruitcake that'll teach you different."

"Your great-aunt made this?" Danny asked, hefting it in his hand like the brick it resembled, although it was a brick with cheerful red and green ribbons tied around it.

"No, I did. Great-Aunt Edna went on to her eternal rest twenty years ago."

"Dude! Get out!" Danny gave him a friendly shove. "You made this?"

"It used to be a yearly tradition for me and -- someone I used to know." He wasn't quite ready to say Reva's name yet, even to Danny. Maybe one of these days they'd sit down and have a few beers and talk about it. "Anyway, when I got out of the joint the last time, I figured it was time to dust off the recipe. Don't feel too special; I'm handing them out."

"Well, thanks for giving me one." 

Danny looked _way_ happier than a fruitcake with red and green ribbons tied around it should have made him, and it made Luke suddenly, fiercely glad that he'd gotten over several days of dithering and decided that giving Danny a fruitcake wouldn't offend his Buddhist sensibilities or whatever.

"So, hey, did you work out your Christmas thing?" he asked.

"Kinda. I think you're right, it was just a matter of figuring out what I wanted this holiday to be for me." Danny beamed. "And I think I did figure it out."

"Good for you. Hey, so listen, I'll probably be spending most of Christmas Day at Mt. Olivet Baptist, serving Christmas dinner and handing out donated clothing and toys to anyone in need. I know, sounds like a great time, but it really _is_ a pretty good time. There'll be Christmas dinner for the volunteers, and a lot of people from the neighborhood will be there. You and Colleen would be welcome to come by if you want."

"I'll come if I can get away. I think Colleen's center is doing something similar, but I'll see if we could run uptown for awhile. Meanwhile, I'd love to stay, but I have another errand to run."

 

***

 

"Working on Christmas Eve, Ward? Why doesn't that surprise me."

Ward snorted and glanced up at Danny leaning against the glass door of his office. "And I'll be working Christmas Day, too -- Are you wearing _antlers."_

"It's festive."

"I'm just going to pretend I don't know you." But he looked like he was desperately trying to choke down a smile. "If you brought me a pair," he added, deadpan, "I'm having security throw you out."

Danny laughed and took a package out of his jacket pocket; he laid it on Ward's desk. "Merry Christmas, Ward."

Ward looked at it, then at him, and then leaned down to the bottom drawer of his desk. "Here," he said, tossing a package to Danny. "Yeah, I got you something. Don't get your hopes up. It's terrible."

Danny grinned like a kid as he caught it, and turned it over in his hands. It was a little smaller than a book, rattled slightly, and had been inexpertly layered in taped-together wrapping paper.

"Yes, I wrapped it," Ward said testily. "Which I haven't done since I figured out at a young age that you can get other people to do that for you, so I hope you're happy. I thought about having the store do it, but I guessed that if it looked too professional, you'd catch on."

Still grinning, Danny sat on the edge of Ward's desk. "Open 'em now?" he asked, shaking his gift pointedly, making it rattle.

"Oh, sure, why the hell not. It is Christmas Eve, after all. Get the disappointment over with early."

Danny cheerfully ripped the paper off. "Ooh! Cool!" _Mind Teaser 3D Puzzles,_ the box said. He opened it and tilted out an tangle of separate little wire and wooden puzzles, each in its own little plastic bag.

"Look, you're hard to shop for, okay? It doesn't help that everything you're into is something I don't know a damn thing about. I thought you might have fun with those. Seems like the kind of thing you'd be good at. Maybe you could use a hobby that doesn't involve punching the shit out of things ..."

"These are awesome! We did something kind of like this at the monastery sometimes. I liked it." Danny tore open one of the plastic bags and dumped the metal pieces into his palm. "C'mon, open yours."

Ward's gift was wrapped not in paper, but in silk, folded neatly and tied with a ribbon. He stripped off the ribbon and the silk fell away from a carved jade dragon.

"Whoa. Danny, this is gorgeous." He held it up to the light. The jade was slightly translucent, with hints of other colors in its depths.

"I thought it'd look nice on your desk. Actually, if you really want to know ..." Danny looked slightly embarrassed. "I bought it for you in China when Colleen and I were hunting the Hand. I saw it and thought maybe it'd, you know, remind you of me a little bit. I was going to send it, but things got busy, and then I was back in the U.S. and actually forgot I had it 'til I found it in the bottom of my pack."

"You bought this for me in China and I gave you a goddamn box of kid's puzzles."

"Which I love," Danny argued. He was still working the puzzle, sliding the pieces around. "These are great. Look, I got you a thing you're gonna put on the edge of your desk and just look at every once in a while. You got me something _fun._ Here." He nudged the box in Ward's direction. "Try one."

"I'm terrible at these."

"Me too. Race you."

"Yeah, right," Ward said, picking up one of the wooden ones. "You've got a head start."

"I'll start a new one. This one's too hard anyway."

They ended up sitting on the floor, because it was easier than doing it at the desk. It turned out they were about equally matched, and not a lot of work got done that afternoon.

 

***

 

"Jeri! Hey -- Jeri!"

Jeri Hogarth turned around as she was just leaving the firm's locked building in the early winter dusk. And yes, it was in fact Danny Rand pelting down the street in her direction, clutching a mostly-empty-looking duffel bag against his side with a pair of freaking _reindeer antlers_ bobbing on top of his head, because of course there was.

"You're wearing antlers," she said when he caught up to her.

"I don't know why people keep commenting on those. Anyway. Hi! Merry Christmas!"

"Hi and Merry Christmas to you, I suppose," she said, eyeing him. "Are you going to try to hug me?"

"No," Danny said quickly. He thrust something in her direction. "Here."

Having no choice except to drop it on the sidewalk, Jeri took the bottle of wine he thrust into her hands. It was topped with a festive bow.

"I don't really know wines," Danny said, "but I asked for the best and most expensive wine they had. Classy. Like you."

"Oh," she said. "Oh, I don't think I'd say _that,_ exactly ..."

"If you hate it, you can give it away to a client or something. But I wanted to give you something. You took a chance on me when you didn't have to, and you were nice to me when almost no one else was." He smiled at her. "So thank you. And happy holidays, if you have a holiday around this time of year. If not, then it's a secular thank-you bottle of wine. So hey, I gotta run for dinner with Colleen, I stayed too long at the Rand building, but wait, first --" He took off the antlers and, before she could step away, planted them on top of her sleekly coiffed hair.

"No," Jeri said flatly.

"That's a good look on you." Danny grinned at her and pivoted away. "Happy holidays, or whatever!"

"I said no!" she called after him, and was left standing on the sidewalk clutching the wine bottle, staring down the street after him and wearing plastic reindeer antlers. 

She reached up and groped hesitantly at the antlers. "Unbelievable," she muttered. She closed her fingers around them, started to take them off, then took her hand away. Fine. She tilted her chin up. She was going to wear reindeer antlers on her commute home, and if anyone had anything to say about that, they could just plain fuck right off.

 

***

 

"You look like you had a good day," Colleen said, laughing, as she poured wine into two glasses while Danny set out boxes of takeout from the Szechuan place around the corner. "You're practically glowing. I guess your Christmas errands went well."

"I'm happy," Danny said simply, tucking his feet up under him on the couch. He held out a dangling, twisty bit of metal. "Ward gave me these. Want to try?"

"Maybe later." She sat down beside him and handed him his glass. "I've got a present for you, by the way."

His million-watt smile dimmed. "Colleen, you don't have to do Christmas. I don't expect you to."

"And I'm not planning to, but I found a Christmas movie for us both to enjoy." She pointed to the laptop on the coffee table. "Press play."

He did, and brightened in delight. "Die Hard! I've heard of it, but I haven't seen it yet. This is a Christmas movie?"

"Well," she said, "it takes place at Christmas, so I figured it counts. I don't mind Christmas movies in the slightest if there are a sufficient number of explosions. I have a few more queued up to watch after this one. Brazil, Rocky IV, Gremlins, Lethal Weapon if we're still awake by that point -- you can have all the holiday cheer we both can stand, as long as it comes with sufficient machine guns and sarcasm."

"Have I mentioned you're the most amazing girlfriend I've ever had?"

"I'm the only girlfriend you've ever had," she said, worming her feet under his thigh and reaching for her glass of wine.

"I know," he said, wrapping his hand loosely and affectionately around her ankle. "But that doesn't make it any less true."


End file.
